"The carpet of pine needles crunched beneath our wellies and the fractured twigs scraped shining faces as we pushed through the undergrowth.

"The smallest wood is an enchanted forest when you're only five. Scary, too, if you haven't got your big brother with you. But my hand was in his, and we were young and invincible.

"We reached the other side, where the overgrown ornamental lake reflected the rusty bricks of the long-abandoned stately home. We had no business, save a search for frog spawn, to be there, and a frisson of naughtiness assailed us as we stepped into the shallows, eyes fixed on our own reflections.

"I began to sink. The brown mud devoured my red wellies and came up over the lip. When it reached my knees I screamed. Lyndon pulled me out - of course. Afterwards, exhausted, we lay in the grass, saying nothing, listening to each other breathe.

"And then we went home, hand in hand, squelching, uncertain whether a hug or a smacked bottom awaited our return.

"Just 32 years later my hand held his again. I gazed at the abbreviated body under the green and white linen of the hospital bed, his legs devoured not by pond mud but by diabetes, renal failure, gangrene.

"As I raged for those lost, golden reaches of 1960s childhood, I wondered whether he was thinking the same.

"I listened to him breathe. It became slower as he slipped away. He was sinking fast and there was nothing I could do.

"And so I held his hand, as another - invisible to my own eyes - led him home."